Larry FineFilmography

The Three Stooges: Funniest Moments

Synopsis: In 1965, with The Three Stooges enjoying a second wind of popularity after their two-reel comedy shorts had found a new audience on television, the funnymen lent their likenesses to a series of animated cartoons based on their distinctive style of slapstick. Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Curly Joe DeRita Read More

The Lost Stooges

Synopsis: This documentary, narrated by respected film critic Leonard Maltin, focuses on the year or so that The Three Stooges spent at MGM studios, from 1933 to 1934. At the time, the trio -- Moe Howard, Larry Fine and newest Stooge Jerry, better known as Curly Howard, were still sidemen to Ted Healy. The Read More

The Making of the Stooges

Actors: Steve Allen

Stoogemania

Actors: Josh Mostel, Melanie Chartoff, Mark Holton, Sid Caesar, Patrick de Santis

Synopsis: This comedy fuses Three Stooges clips with a storyline about a "Stooge Maniac" who is so obsessed with the comedians his sanity comes into question. Josh Mostel plays Stooge devotee Howard F. Howard, and Melanie Chartoff is Beverly, the woman of his dreams. Howard's condition is analyzed by Dr. Read More

The MGM Three Stooges Festival

Actors: Ted Healy, Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: This compilation film includes clips of the Three Stooges from musicals and comedies such as Beer and Pretzels, Dancing Lady, Nertsery Rhymes, and Plane Nuts, all filmed in 1933, and the Big Idea (1934), and others. Included along with excerpts of the Stooges' slapstick acts are musical numbers Read More

Kook's Tour

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Joe DeRita

Synopsis: After a lifetime of gouging eyes and bashing heads, Larry, Moe, and Curly Joe decide to pack up and tour the world with their dog Moose. A bittersweet Stooge swan song. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide Read More

The Outlaws Is Coming

Actors: Curly Joe DeRita, Larry Fine, Moe Howard, Adam West, Nancy Kovack, Henry Gibson, Murray Alper, Sally Starr

Synopsis: The Three Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Curly Joe De Rita) leave Boston for the Wild West when they are fired from the Society for the Preservation of Wildlife. With Eastern editor Kenneth Cabot (Adam West), the boys find themselves in lawless Wyoming and the target of every infamous Read More

The New 3 Stooges [Animated TV Series]

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Joe DeRita

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Mickey Rooney, Ethel Merman, Phil Silvers, Dick Shawn, Jimmy Durante, Buster Keaton

Synopsis: With this all-star Cinerama epic, producer/director Stanley Kramer vowed to make "the comedy that would end all comedies." The story begins during a massive traffic jam, caused by reckless driver Smiler Grogan (Jimmy Durante), who, before (literally) kicking the bucket, cryptically tells the Read More

The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Joe DeRita, Jay Sheffield, Joan Freeman

Synopsis: This slapstick comedy is a hilarious spoof on "Around The World In 80 Days." The grandson of the celebrated Phinius Fogg makes a bet with his cohorts at the London Explorers Club that he can complete the journey. Moe, Larry, and Curly Joe are the dedicated servants who accompany the explorer along Read More

4 for Texas

Actors: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Anita Ekberg, Ursula Andress, Charles Bronson, Victor Buono

Synopsis: In 4 for Texas, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin star as Zack Thomas and Joe Jarrett, a pair of rival mountebanks who spend most of the film battling over who will control the gambling and wenching in 1870 Galveston. Though they'd as soon cut each other's throats than cooperate, Zack and Joe are Read More

The Three Stooges Meet Hercules

Actors: Vicki Trickett, Quinn K. Redeker, George Neise

Synopsis: Larry, Moe and Curly Joe work in a pharmacy where a young professor works on a time machine. When the machine is sabotaged by foil Ralph Dimsal (George N. Neise), the Three Stooges, the professor and beautiful Diane (Vicki Trickett) are transported back in time to ancient Greece. The group lands Read More

The Three Stooges in Orbit

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Joe DeRita, Carol Christensen, Edson Stroll

Synopsis: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Curly-Joe DeRita are out of this world as The Three Stooges In Orbit. The veteran comedy trio defends a secret weapon invented by Professor Danforth (Emil Sitka) from falling into the hands of scheming Martians. Following his success as the villain in "The Three Stooges Read More

Snow White and the Three Stooges

Actors: Carol Heiss, Edson Stroll, Patricia Medina, Guy Rolfe

Synopsis: In this family-oriented comedy, Snow White is taken to the woods to be killed at the behest of her evil stepmother and ends up abandoned and alone. Fortunately she stumbles across a charming cottage inhabited by the Three Stooges, and comical fairy-tale chaos ensues. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Read More

Have Rocket, Will Travel

Actors: Curly Joe DeRita, Jerome Cowan, Anna-Lisa

Synopsis: Joe De Rita makes his debut as the third Stooge in this rollicking slapstick comedy that has the three bunglers accidentally locking themselves into a rocket ship and blasting off to Venus. Once on the second planet they find fantastic life forms, including a verbose unicorn. They also find Read More

Sappy Bullfighters

Synopsis: Released on June 4, 1959, Sappy Bull Fighters ended the Three Stooges' 20-year-plus association with the Columbia short subject department. Consisting mainly of stock footage from the earlier What's the Matador? (1942), the two-reeler incorporated footage, filmed in 1957, featuring Joe Besser and Read More

Oil's Well That Ends Well

Synopsis: About the best thing that can be said about this Joe Besser-era Three Stooges comedy is that it's not an exact remake of the boys' 1939 film Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise, a classic short which featured Curly Howard. Plus, it doesn't rely on recycled footage -- an unfortunate quality of many Read More

Triple Crossed

Synopsis: In their penultimate two-reel comedy, the Three Stooges used mainly stock footage from their earlier He Cooked His Goose. Bachelor Larry makes a play for Moe's wife (Mary Ainslee, in stock footage) and Joe's fiancée (Angela Stevens). The few new scenes featuring Joe Besser were filmed in 1957. Read More

Fifi Blows Her Top

Synopsis: Joe Besser's French wartime girlfriend, Fifi (Vanda Dupre), moves in next door to the boys in this Three Stooges comedy two-reeler, a remake, with plenty of stock footage of Love at First Bite (1950). Christine McIntyre, who had retired in 1954, and Heinie Conklin appeared courtesy of the old Read More

Flying Saucer Daffy

Synopsis: Joe Besser's photograph of a paper plate is mistaken for an UFO in this two-reel comedy starring the Three Stooges. Moe and Larry are paid handsomely for the picture, but when it is determined to be a fake, they are hauled off to jail. Joe, meanwhile, manages to photograph a real flying saucer and Read More

Pies and Guys

Synopsis: A professor (Gene Roth) wages that he can turn the Three Stooges into refined gentlemen in this remake, with stock footage of Hoi Polloi (1935) and Half Wits Holiday (1947). Symona Boniface, who had died in 1950, and Helen Dickson appeared courtesy of the stock footage while new scenes were filmed Read More

Sweet and Hot

Actors: Muriel Landers

Synopsis: Filmed in 1957, this Three Stooges two-reel comedy featured Muriel Landers as Joe Besser's sister, a singer suffering from stage fright. Several scenes consisted of stock footage from I'm a Monkey's Uncle (1948) and Besser's solo effort G.I. Dood It (1955). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide Read More

Quiz Whiz

Synopsis: In their first two-reel comedy of 1958 (although filmed in 1957), the Three Stooges welcome blonde Greta Thyssen, Miss Denmark of 1952, and the last in a long line of pretty starlets to grace the team's little comedy shorts. The long-legged former double for Marilyn Monroe (Bus Stop), Miss Thyssen Read More

A Merry Mix-Up

Space Ship Sappy

Synopsis: In their first sci-fi comedy, the Three Stooges land on Sunev (Venus spelled backwards), a planet inhabited by cannibalistic starlets such as Harriette Tarler, Lorraine Crawford, and Playboy Playmate Marilyn Hanold. Emil Sitka once again plays a deranged scientist, a favorite role of the popular Read More

Horsing Around

Rusty Romeos

Synopsis: Unbeknownst to each other, the Three Stooges fall in love with the same gold digger (Connie Cezan) in this two-reel comedy which consisted mainly of stock footage from the earlier Corny Casanovas (1952). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide Read More

Outer Space Jitters

Synopsis: This is one of the funnier shorts made by the latter day Three Stooges lineup of Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Joe Besser. The boys are assistants to Professor Jones (Emil Sitka) and they have traveled from Earth to the planet Sunev (which a title informs us is "Venus" spelled backwards). The Read More

Muscle up a Little Closer

Synopsis: This Three Stooges comedy was the second with Joe Besser in the lineup, and from the beginning it hardly seems like a Stooges film at all. It opens with the boys greeting their girlfriends and both Moe and Larry have their hair slicked back. (They never show their normal hairstyles throughout the Read More

Guns A-Poppin

Synopsis: A remake with stock footage of the Three Stooges' earlier Idiots Deluxe, Guns A-Poppin' has Moe Howard on trial for assaulting Larry and Joe. Vernon Dent appears in the old footage. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide Read More

Hoofs and Goofs

Synopsis: The first Three Stooges short to co-star Joe Besser as the third Stooge, Hoofs and Goofs features Moe Howard in drag playing his own sister, Birdie. Joe dreams that Birdie is reincarnated as a horse who soon takes up every inch of space in the Stooges' apartment. Benny Rubin returned to the series Read More

Rumpus in the Harem

Synopsis: Containing a wealth of stock footage from the earlier Malice in the Palace (1949), this Three Stooges two-reel comedy featured the boys attempting to save their girlfriends (Harriette Tarler, Diana Darrin, and Suzanne Ridgeway) from the evil Sultan of Pish Posh (Vernon Dent). ~ Hans J. Wollstein Read More

Scheming Schemers

Synopsis: The Three Stooges play plumbers searching for a diamond ring in this two-reel comedy which added footage from the earlier A Plumbing We Will Go (1940), Vagabond Loafers (1948), and Half Wits Holiday (1948) to a few newly filmed scenes. In a desperate effort to keep the series alive, Shemp Howard Read More

Husbands Beware

Synopsis: A remake -- with plenty of stock footage -- of Brideless Groom (1947), Husbands Beware once again asks the burning question: Can Shemp of the Three Stooges find himself a wife in a matter of hours and qualify for a 50,000-dollar inheritance? Columbia stretched the plot rather thin this time Read More

Creeps

Synopsis: Starring the Three Stooges, this derivative two-reel haunted house comedy was a remake -- with at least ten minutes of stock footage -- of the team's earlier The Ghost Talks (1949) ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide Read More

Hot Stuff

Synopsis: Containing a wealth of stock footage from the earlier Fuelin' Around (1949), this Three Stooges two-reeler features a gang of spies who mistake Larry for the inventor of a top secret rocket fuel. Christine McIntyre, who had retired from films in 1954, Philip Van Zandt, and Jock Mahoney all Read More

Commotion on the Ocean

Synopsis: This was the last Three Stooges film in which Shemp Howard appears. The only catch is that Shemp died almost a year before appearing in this comic short (the footage was lifted from previous Three Stooges films). At least Columbia used one of the trio's funnier shorts, Dunked in the Deep, for most Read More

Flagpole Jitters

Synopsis: A remake with stock footage of the earlier Hokus Pokus (1949), this Three Stooges comedy once again featured Vernon Dent as the Great Svengarlic, a crook who hypnotizes the three dumbbells into helping him commit bank robbery. Filmed for this version were a couple of scenes featuring Columbia Read More

For Crimin out Loud

Synopsis: Ostensibly a remake, this Three Stooges comedy was basically stock footage from the earlier Who Done It? (1949) with a few new scenes added for good measure. Emil Sitka, Christine McIntyre (who had retired in 1954), and Duke York all appear in the old footage only. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Read More

Fling in the Ring

Synopsis: For their first release of 1955, the Three Stooges dug out their old Fright Night (1947), filmed a couple of new scenes, and released it as a brand-new comedy short. Edward Bernds, who had helmed Fright Night, sued Columbia for director credit, a suit that was eventually settled out of court for Read More

Gypped in the Penthouse

Synopsis: In their first original comedy of 1955 (their first two releases had been revamped stock footage), the Three Stooges are members of a woman-haters club who fall in love with the same girl, a brassy gold digger (Jean Willes). Moe is conned into marrying the dame and the trio take their revenge Read More

Blunder Boys

Synopsis: The final Three Stooges two-reel comedy of 1955 was only the second of the year to feature mostly new scenes. The boys play crime school graduates who recount their first -- and last -- case, Dragnet-style. Joining the police force, they are assigned to track down a master criminal, "The Eel" Read More

Bedlam in Paradise

Synopsis: Following Gypped in the Penthouse, a rare original comedy short, the battle-fatigued Three Stooges returned to revamping one of their old shorts, Heavenly Daze (1948), by adding a few new scenes without going to the expense of hiring a supporting cast. The audience, according to producer/director Read More

Of Cash and Hash

Synopsis: As had become their habit, the Three Stooges revamped their old comedy shorts -- in this case 1948's Shivering Sherlocks -- by adding a couple of new scenes featuring the boys only, thus saving on almost everything including the supporting cast. As in the original comedy, the boys run amuck in Read More

Stone Age Romeos

Synopsis: With only a couple of new scenes added, this Three Stooges short comedy was actually 1948's I'm a Monkey's Uncle in disguise. The last purveyor of screen slapstick, Columbia's short subject department was feeling the competition from television by 1955. But the Stooges remained at the box office Read More

Wham Bam Slam

Synopsis: Shemp is suffering from a case of bad nerves in this Three Stooges two-reel comedy, and Moe and Larry invite him on a disastrous camping trip. Except for a couple of added scenes, this was simply 1948's Pardon My Clutch under a new title. Matt McHugh and starlets Alyn Lockwood, Doris Revier, and Read More

Hot Ice

Synopsis: In this two-reel comedy, released as a remake of Crime on Their Hands (1948), the Three Stooges are novice Scotland Yard detectives searching for a valuable diamond. In reality, Hot Ice actually is Crime on Their Hands, with added scenes from The Hot Scots (1948). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Read More

Pals and Gals

Synopsis: This two-reel Western spoof is a remake with plenty of stock footage of The Three Stooges earlier Out West (1947) and Goofs and Saddles (1937). The Stooges journey West and rescue three gals from the notorious Barker gang. Norma Randall and Ruth Godfrey appear in added 1954 footage. ~ Hans J. Read More

Scotched in Scotland

Synopsis: For their final two-reel comedy of 1954, the Three Stooges remade their earlier The Hot Scots (1948), playing detective school graduates shipped of to Scotland's Glenheather Castle to guard a treasure. Christine McIntyre, Theodore Lorch (who had died in 1947), Herbert Evans, and Charles Knight all Read More

Knutzy Knights

Synopsis: A remake of the Three Stooges' earlier Squareheads of the Round Table, this two-reel comedy features the boys as troubadours attempting to save Princess Elaine (Christine McIntyre) from a fate worse than death. Miss McIntyre, who had retired by 1954, and Jock Mahoney as the romantic leads appeared Read More

Musty Musketeers

Synopsis: A remake, with stock footage, of the earlier Fiddlers Three (1948), this Three Stooges comedy short features the boys as court musicians attempting to prevent an evil potentate (Vernon Dent via stock footage) from marrying a lovely princess (Virginia Hunter, again via stock footage). Added cast Read More

Income Tax Sappy

Synopsis: In this, their first comedy short of 1954, the Three Stooges make income tax cheating a cottage industry -- until caught and thrown in jail by revenue agents. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide Read More

Shot in the Frontier

Synopsis: This was a particularly witty short for the Three Stooges during the latter part of their Shemp Howard era. Three young lovelies -- Ella, Bella and Stella -- are waiting anxiously for the arrival of their sweethearts, who come lumbering in on the back of a placid burro. They're none other than Read More

Up in Daisy's Penthouse

Synopsis: This Shemp Howard-era Three Stooges comedy was a remake of the boys' 1937 film Three Dumb Clucks, made when Curly Howard was part of the lineup. The only real difference (other than the lineup change) is that this time around the Stooges aren't in jail, they're living with their mother. She wakes Read More

Tricky Dicks

Synopsis: While the Three Stooges are best known for their violent brand of slapstick -- and director Jules White generally played the boys' physical aspect for all it was worth -- this comic short also contains quite a few very funny lines. The Stooges are detectives, but they're more interested in their Read More

Goof on the Roof

Synopsis: The Three Stooges are house sitters in this typical two-reel farce, ending up wrecking the house in an attempt to put up a television antenna. Goof on the Roof was a remake of an earlier Columbia short subject, Let Down Your Aerial (1949), which had starred the team of Wally Vernon and Gus Read More

Booty and the Beast

Synopsis: The Three Stooges chase a safe-cracker (Kenneth MacDonald) to Las Vegas in this two-reel comedy, which mainly consists of footage from Hold That Lion, including Cury Howard's cameo. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide Read More

Bubble Trouble

Synopsis: The Three Stooges play druggists inventing a youth serum in this remake of All Gummed Up (1947). Christine McIntyre, Emil Sitka, and Victor Travers all appear courtesy of stock footage. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide Read More

Spooks

Synopsis: The first of two misguided Three Stooges comedy shorts released in 3-D, Spooks mainly consisted of flying pies as the boys enter a haunted house in search of pretty Norma Randall. Veteran Stooges regulars Philip Van Zandt and Tom Kennedy also appeared. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide Read More

Pardon My Backfire

Synopsis: The second of two Three Stooges comedy shorts laboriously filmed in unfunny 3-D, Pardon My Backfire featured the boys as garage mechanics who get involved with a gang of crooks. Benny Rubin, in his second of three appearances with the Stooges, Frank Sully, Andy Clyde regular Barbara Bartay, Phil Read More

Loose Loot

Synopsis: In this weak Three Stooges entry, the boys find themselves backstage at the Circle Follies Theatre in search of a con man (Kenneth MacDonald). Using stock footage from the earlier Hold That Lion (1947), Loose Loot also featured veteran comic Tom Kennedy along with Emil Sitka, Suzanne Ridgeway, and Read More

Gents in a Jam

Synopsis: The Three Stooges are about to be evicted from their apartment in this comic short. To pay the rent, they offer to do some painting for the landlady, Mrs. MacGruder. The landlady warns them that the "furnishings cost a pretty penny," so it's no surprise that the Stooges wreck the place. They're Read More

Cuckoo on a Choo-Choo

Synopsis: As in He Cooked His Goose (which was released earlier in 1952), the usual Three Stooges brotherly camaraderie is lacking in this odd comic short. Larry, Shemp, and a pair of sisters (Patricia Wright and Victoria Horne) have, for some unknown reason, stolen a railroad car from the Penciltucky Read More

Corny Casanovas

Synopsis: Like many Three Stooges comedies, this one seems to be divided into two parts: the first one involves the inept trio cleaning their house and looking forward to the day when they'll be married and have wives to do all the domestic chores (a politically incorrect statement now, but a typical Read More

He Cooked His Goose

Synopsis: This is rather an odd Three Stooges short -- instead of the warm (although knockabout) friendship they usually have, here they are vicious rivals who don't seem to have much of a relationship at all. Larry is a compulsive womanizer who is having an affair with Moe's wife, and is also trying to Read More

A Missed Fortune

Synopsis: This Three Stooges comedy was a remake of the 1938 short Healthy, Wealthy and Dumb, with Shemp in Curly's role. The boys are having breakfast while Shemp is working on a ditty to enter in a radio contest. Moe puts Shemp's glue on his pancakes and seals his mouth shut. While dealing with this Read More

Three Dark Horses

Synopsis: 1952 was a presidential election year, and it's no surprise that politics wound up as the subject of this Three Stooges short. Here the boys are janitors-turned-delegates. Corrupt campaign manager Bill Wick (Kenneth MacDonald) and his assistant (Ben Welden) need to replace three delegates who Read More

Listen Judge

Synopsis: It's time to get Shemped with this home video collection, which serves up three Three Stooges shorts featuring Shemp Howard, Larry Fine, and Moe Howard at their comic best. Listen Judge finds the Stooges charged with vagrancy, so they try to be on their best behavior when they're hired to repair a Read More

Three Arabian Nuts

Synopsis: In the first two-reel comedy of 1951, the Three Stooges fall into possession of Aladdin's famous lamp, conjuring up what Shemp insists on calling a "genius." Three Arabian Nuts is regarded one of the better "non-Curly" Stooges vehicles. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide Read More

The Pest Man Wins

Synopsis: Though it doesn't borrow any footage, this Columbia short is essentially a remake of The Three Stooges' 1936 short, Ants in the Pantry. A caterer is throwing a fancy-dress party in hopes of drumming up business for her desserts when the Stooges appear at the window. They're exterminators who can't Read More

The Tooth Will Out

Synopsis: This Columbia short subject starts out with a familiar Three Stooges scenario; the boys have just been fired from their latest job and are being tossed out on their cans. They go from working at the Dainty Dolly Dish Co. to being dishwashers for the Vesuvius Ravioli Company. Predictably they're Read More

Don't Throw That Knife

Synopsis: The Three Stooges are census-takers this time around, running afoul of a knife-wielding magician (series regular Dick Curtis). Jean Willes (formerly Jean Donahue) also appears in this very average Stooges comedy two-reeler produced and directed by Jules White. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide Read More

Merry Mavericks

Synopsis: This Three Stooges comedy begins with a joke similar to their 1943 short Phony Express -- there's a poster of the Stooges, who are wanted for vagrancy. The reward is 50 cents each, or three for a dollar. To escape getting thrown in the hoosegow, the boys (Moe Howard, Shemp Howard, and Larry Fine) Read More

Scrambled Brains

Synopsis: In the fourth Three Stooges comedy of 1951, Moe and Larry attempt to cure Shemp of the hallucinations that caused him to marry a homely nurse. The latter was played by Babe London, a hefty comedienne making her return to Stooges comedy after an absence of 15 years. Written by the veteran Felix Read More

Baby Sitters Jitters

Synopsis: Facing eviction from their apartment, The Three Stooges attempt to raise the rent money by becoming professional baby sitters. Their first client is the lovely Mrs. Joan Lloyd (Lynn Davis), who leaves the Stooges in charge of her precocious son Junior (David Windsor). Thanks to the Stooges' Read More

The Gold Raiders

Actors: George O'Brien, Moe Howard, Shemp Howard, Larry Fine, Sheila Ryan

Synopsis: Filmed in a record five days, Gold Raiders was an attempt by producer Jack Schwartz to inaugurate a new western series starring old favorite George O'Brien. Adding novelty value to the proceedings are the Three Stooges: Shemp Howard, Larry Howard and Moe Howard. The action is fairly divided Read More

Hula-La-La

Synopsis: Incredible as it may seem, The Three Stooges are gainfully employed as dance directors at the B.O. movie studio in Hollywood. The boys' boss Mr. Baines (Emil Sitka) has purchased the tropical island of Rarabonga in order to produce a South Seas epic. Unfortunately, none of the natives know how to Read More

Dopey Dicks

Synopsis: Classic comedy is on the menu in this home video collection that serves up a trio of Three Stooges short subjects featuring Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Shemp Howard. In Dopey Dicks, the Stooges happen upon a mad scientist who needs a human head, complete with brain, for his latest creation, a Read More

Slap Happy Sleuths

Synopsis: In this, their penultimate two-reel comedy of 1950, the Three Stooges play detectives masquerading as gas station attendants for the Great Onion Oil Company in order to foil a robbery. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide Read More

Self Made Maids

Synopsis: In an intriguing concept that doesn't quite come off, the Three Stooges (Moe, Larry, and Shemp) play all the roles in this two-reel comedy, four each. The story -- what there is of it -- is something about three painters and their " lovely" models. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide Read More

Hugs and Mugs

Synopsis: Proprietors of the Shangri-La Upholstery Shop, the Three Stooges purchase a chair which comes complete with a concealed necklace. Before they know it, three girls (Christine McIntyre, Nanette Bordeaux, and Kathleen O'Malley) arrive to claim the find as belonging to them. A pleasant enough two-reel Read More

Love at First Bite

Synopsis: This Three Stooges short opens up with the boys happily cleaning house in anticipation of the arrival of their fiancees (not unlike the beginning of 1952's Corny Casanovas). This time they're engaged to three different girls, who they all met in Europe while in the service. They nostalgically Read More

Punchy Cow Punchers

Synopsis: Everybody is a comic in this Three Stooges picture. The killer Dillon clan are shooting up a Western town and Nell (Christine McIntyre) sends her handsome, but clumsy oaf of a sweetheart, Elmer, off to get help. Help comes in the form of the Stooges, who are playing a trio of cavalrymen so Read More

Studio Stoops

Synopsis: Although this Shemp Howard-era Three Stooges short is rather plot-heavy, it has some particularly funny gags. The boys are termite exterminators who are mistaken for publicity flacks while they're spraying offices at the B.O. movie studio. When the studio head promises them a big bonus if they Read More

A Snitch in Time

Synopsis: The Three Stooges are furniture makers ("Antiques Made While-U-Waite!") in this comic short. The trio, however, spend more time making mayhem than making chairs. After shelling out much abuse to each other, Moe gets a phone call from one of their clients, Miss Scudder (pretty Columbia comic foil Read More

Three Hams on Rye

Synopsis: In this fairly amusing two-reel comedy, the Three Stooges play theater with aspirations to become thespians. They are finally awarded parts in a tragedy ("The Bride Wore Spurs") -- which they promptly turn into a farce. About to be kicked out on their ears, the Stooges suddenly become heroes when Read More

The Ghost Talks

Synopsis: In their premiere comedy short of 1949, the Three Stooges are moving men assigned to the haunted Smorgasbord Castle. The ghost du jour proves to be a clanking suit of armor inhabited by the ghost of Peeping Tom. The Ghost Talks was "remade" by the Stooges as Creeps in 1955, although the bulk of Read More

Malice in the Palace

Synopsis: This Shemp Howard-era Three Stooges short has quite a few good gags. It opens up at the Cafe Casbah Bah, where two forbidding-looking Middle Easterners, Hassan Ben Sober and Gin-A Rummy, are plotting to break into the tomb of Rootentooten, which contains a priceless diamond. But first they want to Read More

Dunked in the Deep

Synopsis: This fast-paced Three Stooges comedy is one of the funnier Shemp-era films. On a radio, an announcer is reporting the theft of secret documents by foreign spies. One of the spies (Gene Roth) is busy cutting open several watermelons and secreting the microfilm inside. Just as he finishes, his Read More

Fuelin Around

Synopsis: Shemp fans rejoice! This home video release collects three classic Three Stooges comedies with Shemp Howard starring alongside Moe Howard and Larry Fine. Hot Scots finds the boys traveling to Scotland, where they hope to become crime fighters with Scotland Yard. They have to settle for work as Read More

Hokus Pokus

Synopsis: When blonde Mary Ainslee picks three saps to unwittingly help her swindle an insurance company, she has the misfortune of choosing the Three Stooges. Mary has taken to a wheelchair and convinced the boys -- and the insurance man (Vernon Dent) -- that she deserves to be awarded 25 thousand dollars. Read More

Jerks of All Trades

Actors: Larry Fine, Moe Howard, Shemp Howard

Synopsis: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Shemp Howard star as the Three Stooges in this 1949 television pilot, filmed before a live studio audience. The 21-minute adventure finds the numbskulls working as painters and paperhangers. Hired to work on the home of an unsuspecting family, the threesome leave the Read More

Vagabond Loafers

Synopsis: This Shemp Howard-era Three Stooges short borrows quite a bit (both plot- and footage-wise) from 1940's A Plumbing We Will Go, made in the Curly days. The story opens with a wealthy couple throwing a party to celebrate the acquisition of a $50,000-dollar Van Brocklin painting. But there's a leak Read More

Who Done It?

Synopsis: The Three Stooges play inept detectives in this Columbia comedy. Wealthy Mr. Goodrich (Emil Sitka) is very nervous because the Phantom Gang has been knocking off men just like himself, and he has been informed that he will be next. He frantically calls the Alert Detective Agency because the Read More

Mummy's Dummies

Actors: Larry Fine, Moe Howard, Shemp Howard, Vernon Dent, Ralph Dunn

Synopsis: This time we're in ancient Egypt, where the Three Stooges own a used-chariot dealership ("I'm Honest Moe, he's Honest Shemp, and that's...that's Larry"). When they bamboozle the Captain of the Royal Guard (Ralph Dunn) out of 400 shekels for a defective chariot, the Stooges are arrested and brought Read More

Crime on Their Hands

Synopsis: Even with a combined I.Q. that's in the negative column, The Three Stooges still manage to outwit a gang of crooks. The bad guys, led by Dapper (Kenneth MacDonald), have stolen the famed Punjab diamond and the heist has hit the front pages. At the newsroom, editor J.L. Cameron warns the Stooges Read More

Pardon My Clutch

Synopsis: In their second two-reel short of 1948, the Three Stooges plan to ease Shemp's toothache by going on a camping trip. From buying a used car to the trip itself, everything that can go wrong does, including a bill collector who proves to be a fugitive from an insane asylum. The Stooges remade the Read More

I'm a Monkey's Uncle

Synopsis: One of the better Three Stooges comedy two-reelers of the "Shemp era," I'm a Monkey's Uncle featured the boys as cavemen chasing after a trio of prehistoric lovelies, Aggie, Maggie, and Baggie (aka Columbia starlets Dee Green, Virginia Hunter, and Nancy Saunders). The latter seems to have spent Read More

Square Heads of the Round Table

Synopsis: The Three Stooges play troubadours of the Middle Ages in this comic short. It opens with Shemp stuck in his armor suit -- "I kept busting rivets so I had my tailor spot-weld me," he explains. It turns out that Cedric the blacksmith is hiding in their home to avoid beheading -- he has fallen in Read More

Shivering Sherlocks

Synopsis: While this Three Stooges short meanders with little rhyme or reason, it does contain a number of good gags. The cops are on the lookout for a trio of armed car robbers. Instead they find the Stooges in a trash can. They drag the guys in for a lie detector test but the biggest liar turns out to be Read More

Fiddlers Three

Synopsis: Filmed on standing sets from Columbia's Bandits of Sherwood Forest (1946), this average Three Stooges comedy featured the zany trio as fiddlers at the court of Old King Cole. They are forbidden by the king to marry their sweethearts until Princess Alicia weds Prince Valiant. An evil magician, who Read More

Heavenly Daze

Synopsis: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Shemp Howard unleash their unique blend of comic chaos in this collection of three vintage Three Stooges short subjects. In Heavenly Daze, Shemp dies and meets his maker, who informs him that if he wants to get into heaven, he must first get con men Moe and Larry to Read More

The Hot Scots

Synopsis: The Three Stooges are wannabe detectives in this comic short. They show up at Scotland Yard wearing fake facial hair to answer a wanted ad. Inspector McCormick is puzzled by this until they remind him that the notice requested "experienced yard men." So he sends them out to locate some "missing Read More

Sing a Song of Six Pants

Synopsis: According to their storefront, The Three Stooges are "unaccustomed tailors" who do "Cleaning, pressing and altercations." But maybe not for long -- their equipment is in danger of being repossessed. When they hear that bank robber Terry Hargan is on the loose and there's a reward for his capture Read More

Brideless Groom

Synopsis: Shemp Howard plays a vocal coach in this Three Stooges short. His most adoring student is a homely young miss who cheerfully mangles "The Voice of Spring." As soon as her lesson is over, Moe and Larry show up and inform him that his Uncle Caleb has left him a half a million dollars -- provided Read More

Hold That Lion

Synopsis: A fine Three Stooges two-reel comedy, Hold That Lion is proof positive that the underrated Shemp Howard was a worthy replacement for the ailing Curly Howard and no mere stop-gap measure. The three dimwits play heirs going after the villain, Ichabod Slipp (Kenneth MacDonald), who absconded with Read More

All Gummed Up

Synopsis: In this classic Three Stooges comedy short, the boys play drug store operators who help the boss' wife by inventing a youth serum, which turns her into a young girl. The husband, however, overdoses on the stuff and becomes an infant. With Emil Sitka, Christine McIntyre, and the wonderful Symona Read More

Out West

Synopsis: The Three Stooges returned to the wild and woolly West in this above-average two-reel comedy, the second to feature Shemp Howard as the third member of the team. They are visitors to a lawless frontier town and run afoul of the infamous Doc Barker (Jack Norman aka Norman Willis) and his gang. To Read More

Fright Night

Synopsis: After Curly Howard suffered a stroke, his brother Shemp quickly stepped in and joined the Three Stooges so that there was little time lost between pictures. Although this was his first Columbia short as part of the trio (he had made films for the studio as a solo), it wasn't the first time Shemp Read More

Half-Wits Holiday

Synopsis: Filmed in 1946 but held over until January of 1947, Half-Wits Holiday proved a rather sad occasion for the Three Stooges. A remake of the earlier Hoi Polloi, in which a professor wages that he can turn the three dimwits into perfect gentlemen. Sadly, Curly Howard, who had been ailing all year Read More

Uncivil Warbirds

Synopsis: In this two-reel comedy, the Three Stooges found themselves caught in the middle of the war between the states, a setting not visited by the zany team since 1935's Uncivil Warriors. This time around they keep changing allegiance until three Southern Belles (Faye Williams, Eleanor Counts, and Marilyn Johnson Read More

Three Little Pirates

Synopsis: This was Curly Howard's next to last film as a member of the Three Stooges. He would collapse from a stroke while filming Half-Wits Holiday, and his illness would end his career. Even though he wasn't well during his last few shorts, Curly's comic timing was usually flawless, and he's especially Read More

The Three Troubledoers

Synopsis: While it was not one of the best latter-day Curly Howard comedies, this Three Stooges short still had enough amusing moments to get by. It opens up with the boys, dusty and worn out, reaching Dead Man's Gulch. The population of the town is rapidly dwindling, as evidenced by the sound of gunfire Read More

Rhythm and Weep

Synopsis: The Three Stooges -- Moe, Larry, and Curly -- become suicidal when thrown out of the 26th vaudeville theater in a row in this average two-reel farce from Columbia Pictures. Deciding to "off" themselves from the roof of a high-rise building, they encounter a trio of chorus girls (Gloria Patrice Read More

Three Loan Wolves

Synopsis: A rather lackluster Three Stooges comedy short (mainly because of Curly Howard's ill health), Three Loan Wolves featured the team as owners of a pawnshop ("Here Today, Pawn Tomorrow") who suddenly become foster parents to an infant left in their store by a gangster's girlfriend (Beverly Warren). Read More

Beer Barrel Polecats

Synopsis: In their first released two-reel comedy of 1946, the Three Stooges are jailed for bootlegging. Their combined efforts to escape makes up the bulk of the comedy, which was heavily augmented with stock footage from So Long Mr. Chumps and In the Sweet Pie and Pie, old footage becoming an increasing Read More

G.I. Wanna Go Home

Synopsis: The postwar housing shortage played a large role in this Three Stooges two-reeler, which cast the boys as returning G.I.s who cannot marry their fiancées (Judy Malcolm, Ethelreda Leopold, and Doris Houck) until they find proper living quarters. Despite the fact that popular Stooges veterans Read More

A Bird in the Head

Synopsis: This is the first Three Stooges short that Edward Bernds directed. However, Curly Howard had begun suffering the series of strokes that would eventually sideline him, and he wasn't up to speed here. To save Bernds' job, producer Hugh McCollum held the film back until the director and the boys made Read More

Swing Parade

Synopsis: In this musical, a struggling young singer falls in love with a nightclub owner whose father mistakes her for someone else and tries to convince her to serve a summons at the club. Fortunately, the love between the youngsters prevails. Music and happiness ensues. Songs include: Stormy Weather" Read More

Monkey Businessmen

Synopsis: The Three Stooges are inept electricians in this comic short. That's no surprise since their last jobs were as peanut brittle breakers. After everyone, including the boss, gets shocked at least once, the boys are finally fired. This trying experience inspires them to take a vacation and they wind Read More

If a Body Meets a Body

Synopsis: Written, produced, and directed by the White brothers, Jules and Jack, this two-reeler starred the Three Stooges in a traditional haunted house setting. They arrive at the spooky mansion for the reading of a will, only to find the lawyer murdered. Locked up with the rest of the potential heirs Read More

Micro-Phonies

Synopsis: A little over a year after this Three Stooges short was made, Curly Howard would suffer a stroke and go into retirement. But even though he was often ill during this period, he still did some of the best work of his career. He's in top form for this comedy, a favorite among Stooge fanatics. The Read More

Booby Dupes

Synopsis: In this, their second two-reel comedy of 1945, the Three Stooges play fishmongers who decide to buy a boat and catch their own fish. Unfortunately, their "new" boat proves to be an old wreck and sinks in the middle of the ocean. Surviving on a dinghy, the Stooges wave a paint-splattered flag to Read More

Idiots Deluxe

Synopsis: The Three Stooges co-star with a bear for much of this short. It begins in a courtroom where Moe is on trial for assaulting Curly and Larry (one wonders why this premise didn't occur earlier to any of the Columbia shorts writers). "I'm a sick man," Moe insists, and he tells his story -- his nerves Read More

Rockin' in the Rockies

Synopsis: In this musical western, the Three Stooges' Moe plays the straight man while Curly and Larry play a pair of aspiring Broadway performers who work as bumbling ranch hands. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Three Pests in a Mess

Synopsis: In their first two-reel comedy of 1945, the Three Stooges mistakenly believe that Curly killed a man (actually a store mannequin) and attempt to dispose of the body in, of all things, a pet cemetery. Three Pests in a Mess is actually a remake of El Brendel's 1941 two-reeler Ready, Willing but Read More

Idle Roomers

Synopsis: Although this isn't one of the better Three Stooges shorts, it still has its moments. The boys play bellhops at "Hotel Snazzy Plaza," and fight with each other to get an opportunity to give special service to an attractive woman. Unfortunately, she has a mean-tempered husband who happens to be a Read More

The Yoke's on Me

Synopsis: In this patriotic two-reel comedy, the Three Stooges are labeled 4-F by the draft board, aiding the war effort instead by becoming farmers. Operating a run down ostrich ranch, the Stooges manage to catch a group of Japanese escapees. Rustic comedians Bob McKenzie and Emmett Lynn joined the Stooges Read More

Gents Without Cents

Synopsis: Columbia's shorts producer (and sometime Stooges director), Jules White, was especially fired up with the patriotic spirit during World War II. Like many Three Stooges comedies made in the early '40s, this one has quite a number of references to the war. It begins with the boys working on their Read More

Crash Goes the Hash

Synopsis: While not among their very best, this Three Stooges short is loaded with funny moments. Fuller Bull (Vernon Dent), managing editor of the Daily News, has just fired all his reporters because they have no information on the immanent wedding of Prince Shaam of Ubeedarn to the widowed socialite, Mrs. Read More

Busy Buddies

Synopsis: When their short-order restaurant -- The Jive Cafe -- only serves up mounting bills, the Three Stooges enter Curly in a cow-milking contest. Busy Buddies was one of the team's lesser two-reel comedies and demonstrated only too well that a hectic schedule was taking its toll on especially Curly Read More

No Dough Boys

Synopsis: During WWII, many Three Stooges shorts were more than just a little propaganda-laden. It may be painful now to watch the Japanese stereotypes and jokes, but at the time Americans found it necessary to drum up as much hatred as possible for their adversaries. Here, the Stooges are playing Japanese Read More

Three Little Twirps

Synopsis: The Three Stooges were still in their prime when this short (the last one of theirs directed by Harry Edwards) was filmed. Larry, Moe and Curly play the most inept poster hangers imaginable and they are caught by their boss just as Curly is tearing his head through one of the posters. It turns out Read More

They Stooge to Conga

Synopsis: While The Three Stooges made a number of propaganda-laced comedies during World War II, the Axis references are relatively slight here until the end. It starts off with the threesome offering their services as "Fix-All Fixers." A frighteningly plain woman calls them over to fix a broken doorbell. Read More

Back from the Front

Synopsis: The Three Stooges join the war effort in this two-reel comedy when they board an enemy submarine masquerading as Hitler (Moe), Goebbels (Larry), and Göring (Curly). With their unique brand of anarchy, the Stooges soon take over the vessel. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide Read More

Dizzy Detectives

Synopsis: Gorillas, both fake and (supposedly) real, play a big part in this amusing Three Stooges comedy two-reeler. The boys are policemen masquerading as night watchmen in an attempt to trap a burglar dressed in a gorilla suit. They catch a gorilla, all right, but the beast proves to be real. The Read More

A Gem of a Jam

Synopsis: This clever Three Stooges comedy opens, like many of their films do, with a sign: "Drs. Heart-Burns and Belcher." But that's not referring to the Stooges -- they're merely the night janitors, and not very good ones. They have the usual round of mishaps, the funniest being when Curly gets his head Read More

Phony Express

Synopsis: In spite of its name, Peaceful Gulch is riddled by bullets and bad guys. The sheriff needs some men either brave enough or stupid enough to get rid of the varmints. When he sees a wanted poster for The Three Stooges (their crime is vagrancy and the reward is fifty cents, or three for a dollar), he Read More

Higher Than a Kite

Synopsis: The Three Stooges are literally dropped on wartime Berlin in this two-reel comedy, one of their weakest. They play auto mechanics hiding from an enemy in what they think is a pipe. It is actually a bomb and soon they find themselves, unscathed, behind enemy lines. They disguise themselves as Read More

I Can Hardly Wait

Synopsis: From the references to "Japs" and rations, it's clear that this is one of the Three Stooges shorts filmed during World War II. The boys are defense workers who build airplanes. They've finished for the day and are frying up some ham and eggs, to be divided evenly. Curly complains about his Read More

Spook Louder

Actors: Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: {Jules White, the head of the short subjects department at Columbia, steered quite a few Three Stooges comedies into propaganda territory during World War II. While not as forcefully patriotic as some of the others, this quirky short (directed by Del Lord) takes a few potshots at the Japanese. It Read More

Dizzy Pilots

Synopsis: The Three Stooges, as the Wrong Bothers, aided the war effort by inventing a new plane in this below-average two-reel comedy. Actually, they are attempting to avoid the draft but when their plane, the Buzzard, fails miserably, they march off to war. Richard Fiske, formerly a busy supporting player Read More

My Sister Eileen

Actors: Rosalind Russell, Brian Aherne, Janet Blair, George Tobias, Richard Quine, June Havoc, Allyn Joslyn

Synopsis: Rosalind Russell plays aspiring Ohio journalist Ruth Sherwood, who heads for New York to seek her fortune, accompanied by her sister, Eileen (Janet Blair), an aspiring actress. The girls take a basement apartment in Greenwich Village, which becomes a gathering place for several oddball characters Read More

Sock-A-Bye-Baby

Synopsis: Because there's not much plot to this Three Stooges short, it has almost a sitcom-like feel. It's late at night and a tearful woman leaves a baby on the doorstep of a home -- which happens to be where the Stooges live. The infant's cries rouse the boys out of a sound sleep, and once they find the Read More

What's the Matador

Synopsis: Parodying the previous year's Blood and Sand, this two-reel comedy starred the Three Stooges as vaudeville entertainers involved with a fiery senorita (Suzanne Kaaren) and her dangerous husband while performing south of the border. The Stooges used both plot and copius stock footage from What's Read More

Three Smart Saps

Synopsis: Three lovely young ladies have to rely on their fiancés -- the Three Stooges -- to get their father out of prison. Surprisingly, their trust is not misplaced. The girls' father is a prison warden who has been overthrown and put behind bars by a gangster. The Stooges decide that their best tactic Read More

Cactus Makes Perfect

Synopsis: The first part of this Three Stooges comedy is pretty amusing, but it's even funnier if you realize that the actor playing the Stooges' long-suffering mother is writer Monte Collins in drag (he co-wrote the story to this picture). Ma Stooge lives with her boys in a humble farmhouse, but Curly has Read More

Even as I.O.U

Synopsis: In one of their all-time most hilariously insane comedy two-reelers, the Three Stooges save a destitute mother and her child by winning the big race -- with monies "borrowed" from the child's piggy bank. They are then cheated by a ventriloquist into buying a retired race horse, in effect losing Read More

Matri-Phony

Synopsis: This Three Stooges short takes place in the days of "Ancient Erysipelas," where the lusty Octopus Grabus is emperor and Ye Olde Pottery and Stone Works is run by Mohicus, Larrycus and Curleycue, "the biggest chiselers in town." The emperor is on the search for a new wife, but the young lovely that Read More

Loco Boy Makes Good

Synopsis: This Three Stooges comedy opens with the boys being tossed out of a flea bag hotel -- they were eight months behind on the dollar-a-month rent. To make money, they scheme to go to a posh hotel and have Curly slip on a bar of soap, then they can sue the establishment and really clean up. Read More

All the World's a Stooge

Synopsis: When wealthy Mrs. Bullion informs her husband, Ajax that they are adopting a "little refugee" -- a common event amongst society people during World War II -- he is less than thrilled. But a trip to the dentist changes his perspective. Instead of getting his tooth pulled by his regular guy, Dr. I. Read More

An Ache in Every Stake

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: The Three Stooges play ice delivery men in this comic short. It's a hot day, and they've been cooling off in the back of the truck; in fact, Curly has gotten his head stuck inside a block of ice. After the other two Stooges free him, he bowls a strike with another block of ice and some milk Read More

I'll Never Heil Again

Synopsis: Even though The Three Stooges, as dictators of Moronica, get eaten by lions at the end of 1940's You Natzy Spy!, they're brought back to terrorize the world once again for this comic satire on Hitler and the other Axis rulers. This time, the munitions manufactures from the first short have come to Read More

Some More of Samoa

Synopsis: The Three Stooges are tree surgeons in this comic short. An irascible old man is driving both his wife and his nurse up a wall. But instead of being concerned about his own illness, he's worried about his tree, a rare "puglis persimmon." The Stooges, also known as the Elite Painless Tree Surgeons Read More

So Long Mr. Chumps

Synopsis: In the 190 comic shorts that the Three Stooges made for Columbia, they worked at just about every blue-collar job imaginable (that is, when they were gainfully employed). Here they're street cleaners, and not very good ones. But at least they're honest -- when they find an envelope filled with oil Read More

Time out for Rhythm

Actors: Ann Miller, Rudy Vallee, Rosemary Lane, Allen Jenkins, Joan Merrill

Synopsis: A strong lineup of guest stars enhances the enjoyment of the Columbia B-plus musical Time Out for Rhythm. The somewhat futuristic storyline finds producers Dan Collins (Rudy Vallee), Mike Armstrong (Richard Lane) and Off-Beat Davis (Allen Jenkins) lining up talent for a series of television Read More

In the Sweet Pie and Pie

Synopsis: Hard-working Columbia starlets Mary Ainslee, Dorothy Appleby, and Ethelreda Leopold take center stage in this Three Stooges comedy, one of the year's best two-reelers. They play society girls, who, to get their hands on an inheritance, marry three death row inmates (guess who?). When the boys are Read More

Dutiful But Dumb

Synopsis: The Three Stooges star as inept photographers in this comic short. When they screw up their latest assignment -- getting a clandestine photo of a movie star and his new bride -- their boss (Vernon Dent) has had about enough of them. He sends them to Bulgaria for their next job -- mainly because Read More

From Nurse to Worse

Synopsis: This Three Stooges comedy is loaded with funny gags. The boys are painters who run into their old friend Jerry, an insurance salesman. He promises them that if they take out a policy on Curly and they prove that he has gone insane, then they can collect 500 dollars a month. So Moe wrestles the Read More

Nutty But Nice

Synopsis: The plot to this particular Three Stooges short actually makes some sort of sense! The boys are singing waiters, known as the "Hilarious Hash Slingers," at Ye Colonial Inn. Two doctors who are having lunch are delighted at their antics and think that perhaps they can cheer up a sick little girl Read More

No Census, No Feeling

Synopsis: At the start of this comic short, the Three Stooges are unemployed. They've been sleeping in the awning of a swap shop and are rudely awakened when the shop owner unrolls it. After turning the store into a disaster area, the trio run away. They escape to city hall and exit as census takers. Read More

Boobs in Arms

Synopsis: World War II was just heating up, but the U.S. hadn't yet entered the fighting when the Three Stooges made this comic short. It opens with the boys selling greeting cards on the street, none too successfully. One surly guy in particular is a victim of the Stooges' harassment. To get away from his Read More

How High is Up

Synopsis: This Three Stooges comedy has no story to speak of, but it's loaded with great gags. The boys are fix-it men who are sleeping under their car. A flood of water from a fire hydrant sends them floating down the street and they wake up in front of an oncoming car. They try to get back to work, but Read More

Cuckoo Cavaliers

Synopsis: "It's gotta have class and gotta have beauty," the Three Stooges tell a Mexican real estate dealer in this hilarious two-reel comedy. They are looking to buy a saloon; what they get, naturally, is a beauty salon. Produced and directed by Jules White, Cuckoo Cavaliers actually had an even better Read More

Saved by the Belle

Synopsis: This especially wacky Three Stooges short was directed by comedian Charley Chase. The boys are traveling salesmen in the South American country of Valeska. The lazy town is only slightly stirred awake by its frequent earthquakes, nevertheless, there is a revolution brewing. The revolutionary Read More

A-Ducking They Did Go

Synopsis: As so often in their comic shorts, The Three Stooges start off here in the ranks of the gainfully unemployed. After an unsuccessful attempt to steal a watermelon, which lands them in trouble with a cop, the boys wind up at the offices of the Canvas Back Duck Club. The club needs some salesmen and Read More

Calling All Curs

Synopsis: In this typical Columbia two-reel comedy, the Three Stooges play dog groomers whose chief client, Symona Boniface's pooch Garçon, has been kidnapped by thieves masquerading as reporters. Never without resolve, the Stooges try to pass off a mutt as Garçon but Symona is no fool. They then enlist the Read More

We Want Our Mummy

Synopsis: The Three Stooges found themselves in Egypt in this typical two-reel farce, the team's second release of 1939. Hired by the respected Museum of Ancient History to return a kidnapped archaeologist (Bud Jamison), private eyes Moe, Larry, and Curly travel to the Pyramids and the Tomb of Rutentuten. Read More

Yes, We Have No Bonanza

Synopsis: In this comic short, The Three Stooges play singing waiters in a saloon out West. Their songs are accompanied by three pretty cowgirls who also work in the saloon and are their sweethearts. Unfortunately, the saloon keeper is cruel and he berates the girls, who are forced to work for him because Read More

Three Sappy People

Synopsis: While working in a doctor's office, the Three Stooges are mistaken for psychiatrists Ziller, Zeller, and Zoller. Hired by millionaire Don Beddoe to cure his giddy wife, Lorna Gray, the Stooges proceed only to wreck a fancy dinner party as only they can. Their antics, however, cure the wife and Read More

Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise

Synopsis: The Three Stooges (Moe, Larry, and Curly), are tramps in this two-reel comedy directed by Jules White. The boys come to the assistance of the Widow Jenkins (Eva McKenzie), who has just been cheated out of her land by a couple of swindlers (Dick Curtis and Richard Fiske). Attempting to fix the Read More

Violent is the Word for Curly

Synopsis: Comedian Charley Chase not only directed this two-reel farce, one of the Three Stooges' most popular, but also contributed a novelty song, "Swingin' the Alphabet." The Stooges are gas station attendants mistaken for European professors and hired by the Mildew Women's College. When the real Read More

Start Cheering

Actors: Jimmy Durante, Joan Perry, Charles Starrett

Synopsis: Start Cheering is Columbia Pictures' idea of a college musical: Practically everyone in the cast is past the age of 30. Charles Starrett plays a movie star who wearies of Hollywood and decides to get a college education. He enrolls incognito in a small university, much to the discomfort of his Read More

Wee Wee Monsieur

Actors: William Irving

Synopsis: The Three Stooges play aspiring artists in this comic short. They're honing their craft in "Paris -- somewhere in France" (as the title card helpfully offers). The boys are no better at art and music than they were at the blue-collar jobs they had in their other films. They're eight months behind Read More

Three Little Sew and Sews

Synopsis: The Three Stooges play inept Navy tailors for the Republic of Telvana in this comic short. The Admiral has been invited to a luncheon by Count Gehrol, a possible spy, but Curly intercepts the telegram and puts on the Admiral's suit himself. Moe and Larry are temporarily tossed in the brig for Read More

Mutts to You

Synopsis: This Three Stooges short was one of four directed by comedian Charley Chase. The boys play dog-groomers who use a conveyor belt contrivance that would make Rube Goldberg proud -- it includes six mechanical hands to wash the pooch, and Curly rides a stationary bicycle to run the rinse. A couple has Read More

Healthy, Wealthy and Dumb

Synopsis: The Three Stooges strike it rich -- at least temporarily -- in this comic short. While Moe and Larry are playing cards (using pancakes as chips), Curly is trying to come up with a winning slogan for a radio contest involving Stickfast glue. The only result of his efforts is that Moe accidentally Read More

Flat Foot Stooges

Synopsis: As in their earlier False Alarms (1936), the Three Stooges play firemen in this two-reel farce directed by comedian Charley Chase. The engine company in question is somewhat old fashioned and employs horse-powered engines. In an effort to upgrade the equipment, a salesman mistakenly fuels his Read More

Three Missing Links

Synopsis: In this Three Stooges comedy, the boys wind up starring in a big movie. First, of course, they start off on the low end of the blue-collar scale -- they're janitors for a movie studio. B.O. Botswaddle, president of Super Terrific Productions, is looking for a co-star for his temperamental leading Read More

Termites of 1938

Synopsis: Almost like a special bonus, the slapstick of this Three Stooges short is sprinkled with a few dashes of subtle humor. When a husband insists on going fishing, leaving his wife mate-less for a big society bash, her friend suggests she call the Acme Escort Service. "I hope they're discriminating," Read More

Tassels in the Air

Synopsis: This Three Stooges short was one of a handful directed by comedian Charley Chase. While the trio's films with Chase were no less funny than the ones they made with Jules White or any of the other directors in the Columbia shorts department, though the violence was toned down in favor of other Read More

Grips, Grunts and Groans

Synopsis: In this classic Three Stooges short, the boys are tramps on the lam from the railroad police when they happen in on an athletic club. They are enlisted as sparring partners, but when a wrestler, Bustoff, takes a liking to them, they are given the tough assignment of keeping him sober until his big Read More

Goofs and Saddles

Synopsis: The Three Stooges actually play different characters here (or at least they have different names, different hairstyles, and different mustaches) -- Curly is Buffalo Bilious, Moe is Wild Bill Hiccup, and Larry is Just Plain Bill. They are General Muster's three best scouts, and now that the Indian Read More

Playing the Ponies

Synopsis: The Three Stooges are restaurateurs who get into the horseracing business in this comic short. Quitting the restaurant is probably not such a bad idea; Curly makes chicken soup by pouring hot water over a chicken carcass, and makes fresh filet of sole by casting a line out the window into the Read More

Three Dumb Clucks

Synopsis: This Three Stooges comedy is actually a send up of Universal's Deanna Durbin film, Three Smart Girls. But instead of a trio of young lovelies who are out to save their father from marrying a gold digger, we have jailbirds Larry, Moe and Curly. They break out of prison when they receive a letter Read More

The Sitter-Downers

Synopsis: The ever-growing unionization during the 1930s forms the very basis for this Three Stooges short. The Stooges are courting three sisters -- Corabelle, Florabelle and Dorabelle. Unfortunately, their father, Mr. Bell, refuses to give the happy couples his blessing. Since they can't wed the girls Read More

Cash and Carry

Synopsis: In her third Three Stooges short, pretty Harley Wood (aka Harlene Wood) played a young girl living with her crippled kid brother (Sonny Bupp) in a junkyard shack. The two unfortunates are saved by the Stooges, who have come into possession of what they believe to be a treasure map. The treasure Read More

Back to the Woods

Synopsis: The Three Stooges are lawbreakers in merry olde England in this comic short. For their crimes, the Stooges are sent to the American colonies to defend the Pilgrim settlement against Indians. They arrive, muskets in hand, and proceed to flirt with the daughters of the governor (Vernon Dent). But Read More

Dizzy Doctors

Synopsis: This Three Stooges comedy is especially fast-paced. The boys wake up at their usual time -- 11 a.m. -- and fix themselves breakfast, only to have their wives come home and threaten divorce if they don't find work. So they land jobs as salesmen for Brighto, a miracle medicine that "brightens old Read More

Movie Maniacs

Synopsis: The Three Stooges try to break into show business in this Columbia short subject. They're first seen as stowaways on a train headed for Hollywood. While Curly is cooking pancakes (one of which sticks to the boxcar's ceiling) and Larry is ironing sooty burn marks into a pair of Moe's white pants Read More

Ants in the Pantry

Actors: Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Moe Howard

Synopsis: The Three Stooges play slap-happy exterminators in this comic short. The Lightning Pest Control Company is having trouble staying afloat. "This rat-catching business is going to the dogs!" moans manager A. Mouser. He calls for his three workers -- Moe, Larry and Curly -- and tells them to go out Read More

Half-Shot Shooters

Synopsis: Even a run-of-the-mill Three Stooges short had its moments, as this one proves. It begins in November, 1918, and Larry, Moe and Curly are sleeping through the end of World War I. The sergeant (Stanley Blystone) wakes them up to tell them the war is over -- and to abuse them, blacking Curly and Read More

False Alarms

Synopsis: The Three Stooges play firemen in this comic short. While the other firemen are off fighting a fire, the Stooges are still in the shower. As a result, the Captain wants to fire them, but they beg for another chance. He gives in, but orders them to clean the hoses. Curly rolls them out onto the Read More

A Pain in the Pullman

Synopsis: This Three Stooges short is a remake of the Thelma Todd/Zasu Pitts comedy, Show Business. The Stooges are staying at Mrs. Hammond Eggerley's Theatrical Apartments, where they're behind on the rent and haven't eaten in days. Curly, in fact, is roasting his shoe and wants to cook their monkey, who Read More

Disorder in the Court

Synopsis: Directed by Jack White (under his usual pseudonym of Preston Black), this two-reel courtroom caper is, by many, regarded as the best of the Three Stooges' early comedies. Moe, Larry, and Curly are witnesses in a murder trial involving a dancer (Suzanne Kaaren) from "The Black Bottom Cafe," the Read More

Three Little Beers

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Hoi Polloi

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: This is one of the earlier Three Stooges shorts, and one of the funniest. It opens on an exclusive restaurant where two wealthy gents are having an argument -- what really makes the man, heredity or environment? They wager ten thousand dollars and take off in search of three men to use in their Read More

Pardon My Scotch

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: Prohibition has recently ended, and alcoholic beverages are very much in demand in this Three Stooges short. A druggist is furious because his liquor supplier can't come through with the goods. While he is arguing over the phone, the Stooges show up -- they're carpenters who are supposed to Read More

Uncivil Warriors

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Pop Goes the Easel

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: It's the Great Depression and The Three Stooges are having a hard time finding work. And no wonder -- they hold up signs looking for completely inappropriate jobs. Moe is offering to be a social secretary, while Larry's sign insists, "Will do anything. Position as bridge instructor preferred." Read More

Restless Knights

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: This comedy short puts The Three Stooges into a medieval setting and opens with a cameo from Walter Brennan as the boys' old father. It turns out that the Stooges are the progeny of a chambermaid to the King of Anesthesia, and they head to court to offer their services to the young Queen (Geneva Mitchell Read More

Horses' Collars

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: The Three Stooges are in fine form for their fifth Columbia short. Clyde Bruckman, who worked with silent luminaries Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, was the director, and it's obvious that he added quite a bit to the fun. The boys are working for the Hyden Zeke Detective Agency, as evidenced by Read More

Three Little Pigskins

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Lucille Ball, Gertie Green

Synopsis: In their fourth two-reeler for Columbia, the Three Stooges are mistaken for college football heroes by a beautiful gangster's moll. The latter was played by a very young Lucille Ball, who would always credit the Stooges with introducing her to "slapstick and physical comedy." According to Jack Read More

Men in Black

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Dell Henderson, Jeanie Roberts

Synopsis: Although it was nominated for an Academy Award, the third Three Stooges comedy two-reeler for Columbia has not dated well. A spoof of MGM's Clark Gable vehicle Men in White, Men in Black was a rather shapeless romp in which Moe, Larry, and Curly played dumbbell interns at the Lost Arms Hospital. Read More

Punch Drunks

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: While this was the second short that The Three Stooges shot for Columbia, this one is the first where they use their own names (and, thankfully, they don't have to talk in couplets, like they did in their first, Woman Haters). Stooge Moe Howard plays a down-on-his-luck fight manager. While eating Read More

Hollywood Party

Actors: Jimmy Durante, Charles Butterworth, Lupe Velez, Polly Moran

Synopsis: Hollywood Party was planned as a lavish, star-studded MGM musical titled Hollywood Revue of 1933. Under the less-than-sterling guidance of "kicked upstairs" MGM producer Harry Rapf, production dragged on interminably, using up the talents of five directors (none of whom were credited) and Read More

The Big Idea

Actors: Ted Healy

Woman Haters

Actors: Marjorie White, Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Synopsis: Speaking all their dialogue in rhyme, confirmed misogynists Moe and Curly try to break up Larry's marriage with perky Marjorie White. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide Read More

Fugitive Lovers

Actors: Robert Montgomery, Madge Evans, Ted Healy, Nat Pendleton, C. Henry Gordon

Synopsis: Though it's also a "bus" picture, MGM's Fugitive Lovers is as different from Columbia's It Happened One Night as oil and water. Escaping from her gangster boyfriend Legs (Nat Pendleton), chorus girl Letty (Madge Evans) boards a Greyhound bus bound for California. Likewise a passenger -- albeit a Read More

The Captain Hates the Sea

Actors: Victor McLaglen, Helen Vinson, John Gilbert, Alison Skipworth, Wynne Gibson

Synopsis: It's Grand Hotel on the high seas, with a remarkable cast -- particularly for the usually parsimonious Columbia Pictures. As irascible captain Helquist (Walter Connolly) pilots his boat along the Atlantic, an assortment of subplots involving a vast array of characters play themselves out. Among Read More

Myrt and Marge

Actors: Myrtle Vail, Trixie Friganza, Eddie Foy, Jr., John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: Were it not for the diligence of old-time radio buffs and Three Stooges fans, the 1933 Universal epic Myrt and Marge might have remained in (deserved) obscurity. The film was inspired by The Story of Myrt and Marge, a popular radio serial which ran from 1931 to 1946. Repeating their radio roles, Myrtle Vail Read More

Dancing Lady

Actors: Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone, May Robson, Winnie Lightner, Fred Astaire

Synopsis: Virtually everybody except President Roosevelt was in the lavish MGM backstage musical Dancing Lady. Joan Crawford stars as Janie Barlow, an impoverished dancer reduced to working in a seedy Manhattan burlesque house. While on a slumming party with his society friend, wealthy young Tod Newton (Franchot Tone Read More

Meet the Baron

Actors: Jack Pearl, Jimmy Durante, ZaSu Pitts, Ted Healy, Edna May Oliver

Synopsis: In this comedy, a man masquerading as the notorious Baron Munchausen and his partner arrive from the African jungles and create quite a stir in New York. Eventually he ends up a women's college involved in a number of interesting musical production numbers. Look for an early appearance by the "The Read More

Plane Nuts

Actors: Ted Healy

Hello Pop!

Actors: Ted Healy

Beer and Pretzels

Actors: Ted Healy

Turn Back the Clock

Actors: Lee Tracy, Mae Clarke, Otto Kruger, George Barbier, Peggy Shannon

Synopsis: Lee Tracy is a middle-aged, middle-class man dissatisfied with his life. If he'd only married the girl he wanted to and had been a smarter businessman (he believes), things would have been better. One morning, Tracy wakes up and discovers he's been transported twenty years in the past. Armed with Read More

Nertsery Rhymes

Actors: Ted Healy

Soup to Nuts

Actors: Ted Healy, Stanley Smith, Lucille Browne, Charles Winninger

Synopsis: Popular Broadway comedian Ted Healy (sort of a Milton Berle without the charm) was tapped for potential movie stardom by Fox Studios, who cast Healy in the wacky semi-musical comedy Soup to Nuts. The film was written by comic-strip artist Rube Goldberg (who also appears in the film), utilizing Read More